Some people believe everything our gubmint tells us.
The apparent accident that brought another round of grief to Rockaway at the beginning of this week has once again brought those who firmly believe in the conspiracy theory of life out of the woodwork. And, while anything is possible, and that includes the possibility that the plane was sabotaged, the majority of Rockaway residents, The Wave included, now believe that this was indeed a tragic accident. That is obviously not the opinion of everyone who lives on the peninsula, and it is certainly not the opinion of many of those with access to Internet bulletin boards. On the AOL News site, there were several "theories" about the crash. One held that Bullock’s Texaco Station, where one of the plane’s engines fell, is, in fact, a CIA storage area and that the CIA put that engine there to make it look like it had come from the plane. Another holds that Osama crashed the plane into Rockaway in retaliation for the "You can kiss my Rockaway Irish Ass" comment made by a fireman named Moran at the Concert for New York last month. A caller to The Wave on Wednesday morning claimed that he was a Lebanese Christian who was in on a plot dictated by Yassir Arafat, who was in New York City at the time. The caller claims that Arafat’s people sabotaged the plane specifically to fall on Rockaway as a punishment for its "Jewish residents". Another visitor who came to The Wave’s offices that day claims to know an eyewitness who saw a missile or other object chasing the plane down the peninsula. Still another Internet correspondent believes that aliens downed the plane because it was flying over an "Area 51" secret base here on Rockaway.
Even "mainstream" publications such as The New York Post keep the theory alive. A recent column in that paper headlined the fact that "Neighbors Scoff at Theory Crash Was An Accident." It starts off by saying, "people who live around Rockaway’s own Ground Zero are not swallowing the story that this was an accident." I do not know who they have been talking with, but the majority of those we talk with do believe now that the crash was an accident. Tragedy always brings the feelings that some sort of conspiracy on the part of the government or of the "powers that be" has somehow caused the tragedy. The fact is, accidents happen and in this particular case, we think that one happened to Rockaway.
and
Others voiced the opinion that the fact that the devastation was as a result of an accident rather than another terrorist attack somehow made them feel better.